WHEN Sue Foss joined a company specialising in helping children with learning difficulties, she expected her own disability to be met with respect.

But the 46-year-old thalidomide victim, whose hands have been severely affected by the drug, was instead mocked and ordered to take part in a team-building trip to a ten-pin bowling alley, an employment tribunal heard yesterday.

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The £30,000-a-year sales manager told how even though her fingers can't fit in a bowling ball, she was subjected to a barrage of jeers. To her humiliation, she was awarded a certificate bearing the title "Megaflop" for knocking down the lowest number of pins.

Speaking of her ordeal yesterday, the mother of two told an employment tribunal in Ashford, Kent, that the bowling outing was just one incident in a catalogue of bullying and sexual harassment.

Mrs Foss - who has three fingers on her left hand and undersized ones on her right - said she had endured months of cruel jibes referring to her disability as well as lewd comments about her sex life and the size of her breasts.

She said on one occasion a male colleague told her: "Women are only good for sex and in the kitchen." On another occasion a man made a game out of trying to throw bread down her cleavage.

Mrs Foss, who lives with her husband David, a 48-year-old engineer, in Westfield, East Sussex, began working for Dore - which provides help for children with dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - in September last year.

She told how within a month of arriving she was ordered to go on a team-building bowling trip. "I explained that because of my disability I could not do this - but I was told that as a new manager I was expected to be there," she said.

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Too embarrassed to use ramps provided to aid bowlers, she told how she persevered and "acted the fool to try and cover my embarrassment". She added: "When our team were losing I was the one told to "get it together". I was told to get my ***s out to distract the other team."

At the end of the session she was handed a rosette and a certificate reading: "This certifies that you have been awarded the title of Megaflop!"

Mrs Foss said jibes spilled over into everyday work. At first she laughed them off, but increasingly took them to heart.

The final straw was when she went to a black-tie Christmas party at another bowling alley, near to Dore's headquarters in Kenilworth, Warwickshire.

Mrs Foss, who is deaf in one ear and has trouble walking, said: "Due to my lack of confidence I took a long time finding the right dress to wear. I was told to wear a long dress to put my legs away."

During dinner, she told the tribunal, she was asked by one colleague if she was a "retired hooker" and by another "how much?"

"They then started to try and throw pieces of bread at me," she said. "The goal was to get something down my cleavage and the table applauded if he did." She ended the evening crying herself to sleep.

After the Christmas holidays she said work was too much to bear. Suffering depression, she was signed off sick by doctors.

She is claiming disability discrimination and sexual harassment.

Giving evidence on behalf of Dore, financial director Julie Roy said she had been asked to investigate the allegations, but could not find any evidence to support them. The tribunal continues.